HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Heartland Credit Union is expanding once again. The Hutchinson based financial institution has acquired the Farmers Credit Union in Hays.
The merger comes after a successful vote of both the Farmers Credit Union and Heartland Credit Union members.
“Farmers Credit Union started looking into the opportunity for merger partners mid year of last year,” Heartland’s Vice President of Marketing Darren Werth said. “They had a situation where their CEO was going to be leaving. They looked at their situation with the products and services that they had to offer and determined at that point that through merger they could provide better services to their members.”
While the acquisition is some distance away from where Heartland Credit has done business in the past, Werth says the move will help its members in different ways:
“We already had a smaller base of members out there in the Hays area, but we’ve been growing our membership throughout central Kansas over the past few years,” Werth said. “One of the ways we’ve done that is through auto lending creating members out there in the western Kansas.”
Along with that Werth says that the expansion will help members locally as well.
“We do see a lot of travel of our Heartland Credit Union members going through that area,” Werth said. “ Plus, we have college students from all around the area that go to Fort Hays State as well. And so this gave us an opportunity to serve all of those folks.”
With the merger, Heartland Credit Union adds the Hays location to its eight other branches in Hutchinson, Haven, Newton, and Wichita. The new Hays branch will also see some needed upgrades including the addition of a 24-hour ATM along with expanded evening and weekend hours through the Heartland eBranch and Heartland Connections video banking.
“We are very excited to welcome Farmers members to the Heartland Credit Union family. We’re dedicated to continuing Farmers’ commitment to their members and look forward to providing them with enhanced products and services for many years to come,” Dan Springer, President and CEO of Heartland Credit Union said. “We are eager to bring the Heartland Way to the entire Hays community”
Following the merger Heartland is now over $525 million in assets, with 135 employees serving over 34,000 members across Kansas and beyond.
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